611.11B31/4–1345

The Assistant Secretary of State (Clayton) to Chairman Millard E. Tydings of the Filipino Rehabilitation Commission

My Dear Senator Tydings: As Chairman of the Executive Committee on Economic Foreign Policy, I enclose herewith a report from that Committee69 with respect to trade relations with the Philippines as requested in your letter of April 13, 1945.70 The report contains a statement of policy regarding the proposal made by officials of the Commonwealth of the Philippines for a 20–year period of free trade, and recommends, in brief, that the preferential trade relations between the United States and the Philippine Islands which obtained as of December 7, 1941 should be resumed and continued until January 1, 1949 or 1950 after which preferences should be gradually reduced until at the end of about 20 years they are finally eliminated.

Although the views of the Committee were requested only on the subject of trade relations, which constitute only a part of the broad problem of the economic rehabilitation of the Philippines, it should be pointed out that work is being done in the Executive branch of the Government on other aspects of the problem.

The regular membership of the Executive Committee includes the Departments of State, Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor, the United States Tariff Commission and the Foreign Economic Administration. The Department of Interior was, however, included in the membership of the subcommittee which drafted the report, and was represented on the Executive Committee during its consideration of the report. In view of the fact that the representative [Page 1218] from the Department of Interior did not concur in the action taken by the Committee, the position of that Department is set forth in a separate statement72 attached to the report.

Sincerely yours,

William L. Clayton
  1. ECEFP D–91/45, June 26, 1945, not printed.
  2. Not printed.
  3. Letter of July 3 from Secretary of the Interior Ickes to Assistant Secretary of State Clayton, not printed.